I am prepared to expect nothing but bad faith from the Kansas National Committee at Chicago, as I will show you hereafter. This, for the present, is confidential.[226]
It was money and not supplies that Brown was eager for at this period in his operations. His plans did not contemplate any defense of Kansas. The "arming and equipping" of the fifty men was a deception. It was but his stock in trade--a pretext upon which he solicited funds. He, and the kind of men he would have enlisted, if he enlisted any, had all the arms they would need, and stealing requires but little ammunition. In his largest successful venture--the Pottawatomie--but one shot was fired, and that one, as stated by Salmon Brown, was "wholly unnecessary."
February 18, 1857, was an important day in Brown's calendar. Mr. Sanborn had prepared his bill to appropriate $100,000 to relieve the distress of Kansas settlers. It had been introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature, and referred to the Joint Committee on Federal Relations, before which it was to be taken up, on that day, for consideration. Mr. Sanborn stood sponsor for the measure; and Brown and Mr. Whitman appeared before the committee, as advocates, in support of it. Introducing these two distinguished persons Mr. Sanborn said in part:[227]
As one of the petitioners for State aid to the settlers of Kansas, I appear before you to state briefly the purpose of the petition. No labored argument seems necessary; for if the events of the last two years in Kansas, and the prospect there for the future, are not of themselves enough to excite Massachusetts to action, certainly no words could do so. We have not provided ourselves with advocates, therefore, but with witnesses; and we expect that the statements of Captain Brown and Mr. Whitman will show conclusively that the rights and interests of Massachusetts have suffered gross outrage in Kansas--an outrage which is likely to be repeated unless measures are taken by you to prevent so shameful an abuse. Your petitioners desire that a contingent appropriation be made by the legislature, to be placed in the hands of a commission of responsible and conservative men, and used only in case of necessity to relieve the distress of the settlers of Kansas--especially such as have gone from our own state.... We have invited Captain Brown and Mr. Whitman to appear in our behalf, because these gentlemen are eminently qualified either to represent Massachusetts in Kansas, or Kansas in Massachusetts. The best blood of the "Mayflower" runs in the veins of both, and each had an ancestor in the army of the Revolution. Mr. Whitman, seventh in descent from Miles Standish, laid the foundation of the first church and the first school-house in Kansas; John Brown, the sixth descendant of Peter Browne, of the "Mayflower," has been in Kansas what Standish was to the Plymouth Colony. These witnesses have seen the things of which they testify, and have felt the oppression we ask you to check. Ask this gray haired man, gentleman--if you have the heart to do it--where lies the body of his murdered son--where are the homes of his four other sons, who a year ago were quiet farmers in Kansas. I am ashamed, in presence of this modest veteran, to express the admiration which his heroism excites in me. Yet he, so venerable for his years, his integrity, and his courage--a man whom all Massachusetts rises up to honor--is today an outlaw in Kansas. To these witnesses, whose unsworn testimony deserves and will receive from you all, the authority which an oath confers, I will now yield place.